This month at Berendo Middle School, the students learned about the soil pie chart, producers & consumers, climates & seasons, and parts of plants. This was these students first exposure to the garden so there was lots to learn! With the construction going on, the water had been turned off for a couple weeks so the students practiced patience in watching their seeds grow. This month we planted spinach, broccoli, lettuces, carrots, onions, basil, beans, flowers, and peas… and are finally seeing some new sprouts!

For the first lesson, we discussed the soil pie chart and learned that loam is the best type of soil to have in the garden. We did the soil jar test to watch how sand, silt, and clay settle.

In our second lesson we discussed ecological organization, producers & consumers, and food chains. We learned about individuals, populations, communities, and ecosystems. We looked deeper into these systems to identify producers and consumers such as autotrophs (plants), heterotrophs (primary, secondary, and tertiary consumers and apex predators), and decomposers. We played a game of creating our own food chains by lining up and playing the parts of the sun through to the decomposers.

chayote squash, chayote seeds, and little bugs!

In our third lesson we learned about climates and seasons. We discussed how the Earth rotates on its’ axis around the sun which causes the seasons and how certain crops are best grown in certain seasons. We taste tested some seasonal veggies: spinach, kale, and Swiss chard!

tomatoes and beans harvested from the garden!

This week, we learned about the parts of plants- from the importance of roots absorbing water and minerals, to leaves absorbing sunlight and carbon dioxide, to the flowers helping with the reproduction of the plants. We looked at mystery seeds to try to figure out what type of plant they would become along with how the seeds might transport themselves to be planted somewhere else.